Questions and Answers of Exploring Strategy Text And Cases

Why might experts make bad forecasters in the case of (i) Presidential elections; (ii) New product developments?
What are the other megatrends that might have been considered beyond the five here?
What are the different implications of these scenarios for an international consulting firm such as PwC? Which scenario would it like best; which would it like least?
Why is Facebook so powerful? Would you switch to another social network if it had better features even if it was considerably smaller?
What other social media networks and apps do you use that you think could beat Facebook? Why?
How should Emily handle the different forces? What strategic options should she consider?
What strategic group dimensions and strategic groups can you identify? What are the differences between them?
What PESTEL factors are driving changes in the industry? What are the main threats or opportunities that arise from the factors below?
In which respects does the Jamie Oliver Group exemplify issues relevant to entrepreneurial businesses?
Explain the relevance of the principal-agent model (Section 5.3.1) to Oliver’s trust in CEO Paul Hunt.
What do you think were the relative importance of Paul Polman’s personal ethics and strategic advantage in the Unilever Sustainability Plan? What might influence the new Chief Executive’s
Identify at least five ways in which ownership has influenced the strategy of Petrobras.
In what respects did certain employees regard the University of Bath’s culture under Breakwell as falling short of the aspirations described in the 2016-21 strategic plan?
Identify key elements in the University’s organisational field and explain the importance of these to the controversy.
Referring to Section 6.3.3, analyse Uber’s culture under Travis Kalanick in terms of values, beliefs, behaviours and taken-for-granted assumptions (the ‘paradigm’). How much has this culture
Explain which of the four lenses are relevant to strategy making at Facebook. Which do you think explains most about what is happening there?
Using webcam chats is one approach to lower costs in financial advisory services as indicated above. What other ways could there be to lower costs to support a low-cost strategy?
If you were the head of a traditional taxi company, how could you change your business model to compete with Uber?
Using the Ansoff matrix, plot Tesco’s growth over time. What do you notice about the pattern of expansion?
How has Tesco’s corporate strategy changed over time?
What are the most important elements of the CAGE framework for Tomra’s different strategies?
What would be suitable countries for Tomra to enter for deposit and non-deposit solutions, respectively?
Are there other examples where local institutional differences may be more important than traditional market issues of price, competition and technology?
How can ARM attract and manage so many ecosystem partners?
What contributed to Rovio identifying their business opportunity?
Can you identify other technology platform companies and their ecosystem partners?
Rovio has shifted their products between games, activity parks, movies, licensing etc., how have they handled different steps in the entrepreneurial process?
How has Rovio changed their business model over time? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a freemium business model?
How has Rovio evolved through the stages of entrepreneurial growth? At what stage of the entrepreneurial life cycle (see 10.2.3) is Rovio currently? Do you agree that the company is ready for their
Why is the Renault Nissan alliance in trouble?
What would you propose for the future of the alliance?
What metrics do you use to support your conclusions?
Given its strategic challenges, do you agree that for Tesla a flatter organisation was the right way to go?
In this account, how did Goldman Sachs’ systems support the growth strategy and in what respects did they fail with regard to the Malaysian business and more generally?
What reforms to these systems would you recommend? What downsides to these reforms might there be?
Explain the strategic reasons behind each of the reorganisations (2005, 2012 and 2018) undertaken by Tencent.
How adequate is the 2018 reorganisation to Tencent’s various challenges at that point? What else might be necessary?
In terms of a forcefield analysis (15.3.2), how did the forces shift in order to allow the radical changes that came after the sale by Kering in 2014?
Analyse the change context at Marks & Spencer in terms of the change kaleidoscope (Section 15.3.1) at the time of Steve Rowe’s appointment as Chief Executive.
Consider the types of strategic change (Section 15.4) employed initially by Steve Rowe and then under the chairmanship of Archie Norman. How appropriate are they given the change context?
What are the main pros and cons the CEO faces in choosing whether to open up her strategising process?
For the two strategic initiatives, decide who and how she might want to involve in each decision process (refer to Figure 16.2). Might the dilemmas play out differently for each initiative?
Select an important strategic issue for an organisation you are familiar with and generate some descriptive hypotheses. What data could you collect to test this hypothesis?